New startup ideas · Consumer and commerce · Commerce and marketplaces
startup idea
Ampyard
The stocked marketplace for the power equipment behind the datacenter buildout.
Ampyard is a US marketplace for transformers, switchgear, generators and other electrical infrastructure, aimed at small electrical contractors, EV-charging installers and small datacenter operators who cannot get manufacturer allocation.
- Marketplace
- Small business
- $100B+ market
- Platform others build on
- US first
3/5
venture judge
8
similar startups, last 2 years (22 all-time)
96%
of 4 nearest real companies still alive
yes
8 matching federal grants and programs
Direction supported by government programs and grants
Test it before you build it
$1,000 · 3 weeks · 25 prospects
Proves electrical contractors will put $1,000 down on recertified transformers with 3-week delivery, for $1,000 in 3 weeks.
Riskiest assumption · A contractor locked out of 100-week OEM lead times will hand a deposit to an unknown seller for a recertified used transformer, trusting a load-test report instead of an OEM warranty.
1Focus group: who and where
The owner or purchasing lead at a 10-100 person electrical contracting or EV-charging installation firm with a commercial project stalled this quarter waiting on a three-phase pad-mount transformer quoted at 80-120 week OEM lead time.
where to find 25 · NECA and IEC local chapter meetings in one target metro (community and event); the state contractor license roll, such as California's CSLB C-10 electrical contractor list filtered to that metro (directory); ElectricianTalk.com and the counters of local electrical supply houses where contractors wait on backordered gear (channels); the PEARL (Professional Electrical Apparatus Reconditioning League) member directory for the supply side.
2Sell first, build later
A recertified, load-tested 300-750 kVA pad-mount transformer with the full test report, delivered to your site in 3 weeks, sold before Ampyard owns a single unit by brokering PEARL-member reconditioners' stock.
the ask · $18,000-45,000 per unit depending on kVA, roughly 20-40% over pre-shortage OEM list, with a $1,000 refundable deposit to reserve.
a real yes · A real yes is a paid $1,000 deposit on a specific serial number or a purchase order for a listed unit; quote requests, 'call me when you have 500 kVA', and price compliments are not.
3Small experiments
The first one attacks the riskiest assumption; each ends with a number that says whether to run the next.
1. Priced stock sheet test
$300 · 7 days
Call reconditioners from the PEARL member directory and surplus dealers until 6 recertified 300-750 kVA pad-mount units are secured on quote with test reports and 3-week delivery, without buying anything. Publish a one-page stock sheet - kVA, voltage, price, delivery date per serial number - and send it to 25 contractors from the C-10 list and ElectricianTalk. Count formal quote requests.
keep going if · 8 of 25 contractors request a formal quote within 5 days
2. Chapter meeting and counter calls
$500 · 10 days
Attend one NECA and one IEC chapter meeting and spend two mornings at supply-house counters, holding 15 conversations with owners and purchasing leads. Ask what job is stalled on switchgear or a transformer right now, then hand over the stock sheet and pitch the reservation.
keep going if · 6 of 15 name a live stalled project and ask for the stock sheet
3. Reserve a serial number
$200 · 10 days
Send every quote requester a reservation link: $1,000 refundable deposit holds their specific serial-numbered unit and its price for 14 days while they review the test report, balance due on shipment. The founder closes each one by phone.
keep going if · 5 contractors pay the $1,000 deposit
4Collect a deposit up front
Tesla took $1,000 refundable reservations for the Model 3 and $100 for the Cybertruck before building either: the deposit is the measurement, not the revenue.
$1,000
per prospect, refundable
how · A refundable reservation on a specific serial-numbered unit, paid by card or ACH through an invoice link, because contractors already put deposits on equipment and a serial number makes the commitment concrete; the contractor signs a one-page reservation agreement, the founder countersigns. set up: Stripe Invoicing ↗
what it reserves · That exact unit, its price, and its 3-week delivery window, held for 14 days while the buyer reviews the test report; the deposit applies to the purchase price.
refund · Fully refundable any time before the unit ships, and refunded within 2 business days automatically if the test report fails review or the delivery date slips.
target · 5 deposits of $1,000 from 25 contractors within 21 days
Go: build it if
5 or more $1,000 deposits and 8 or more formal quote requests from 25 contractors in 3 weeks, with at least 2 deposits converting to full purchase orders - then raise inventory capital for one regional yard.
Kill: stop if
Fewer than 2 deposits after 25 contractors have seen priced, in-stock units with 3-week delivery - interest without money means they will only buy through incumbent distributors, and the balance-sheet bet is unfunded.
5 Scripts to run itoutreach message, landing copy, deposit terms · click to open
outreach message
If you have a commercial or EV-charging job stalled waiting on a pad-mount transformer, I have recertified 300-750 kVA units available for 3-week delivery - load-tested, full test reports included. I source and recertify the units OEMs are quoting at 100 weeks. A refundable $1,000 deposit holds a specific serial number and its price for 14 days while you review the report. Can I walk you through this week's stock sheet in 20 minutes?
landing page
Recertified pad-mount transformers delivered in 3 weeks, not 100 $1,000 refundable deposit holds a specific load-tested unit and locks its price for 14 days See this week's stock sheet and reserve your unit
deposit terms
Your $1,000 deposit reserves the exact serial-numbered unit on your quote and locks its price and 3-week delivery window for 14 days, and it applies to the purchase price at closing. It is fully refundable any time before the unit ships, no questions asked. If the test report fails your review or we miss the delivery date, we refund within 2 business days.
Would you run this test?
One tap. The yes-share feeds the Demand pillar of this idea's score; nobody sees who answered.
Budgets are out-of-pocket estimates for a team of one to three, US market. Size the deposit to the deal, and check the terms before taking money in a regulated line.
Scorecard
One score that balances how trendy the idea is, the demand for it and its potential for 100x, with competition measured relative to every other idea in the catalog. Recent startup trends first, government priorities second.
62
Idea Score, 0-100 · raw 38.6 x 1.61
Active
competition: more crowded than 61% of ideas · headwind x0.70
+2.7
government priorities, secondary (15 matching grants)
Trend
37
Is the wave forming now? 2025-26 entrants vs 2023-24, rounds since 2025, the sector's live-batch direction, the 2026 trend analyst.
- Entrants 2025-26 vs 2023-24 (similar companies)88
- Rounds announced 2025+ in the sector8
- Sector direction (live batch)0
- 2026 trend analyst50
Demand
67
Does anyone want it? YC's current RFS, companies already paid for something similar, the operator judge, founders' yes-rate in decks, readers who would run the test.
- YC asks for it (current RFS: idea / sector)0
- Someone already pays (similar companies, recent / all-time)100
- Operator judge: real pain100
100x potential
56
Can it return a fund? The venture judge (double weight), market-size and moat axes, neighbours still alive, the technologist judge.
- Venture judge50
- Market size axis100
- Moat axis80
- Neighbours still alive57
- Technologist judge0
Score = 100 x cbrt(Trend x Demand x 100x) x (1 - 0.5 x crowding) + government bonus (max 5), calibrated so the 95th-percentile idea scores 90 (order never changes). A geometric mean: a weak pillar cannot be papered over. Percentiles are among the 272 ideas in the catalog; the terms matched were stocked, marketplace, power, equipment, behind, datacenter, buildout, transformers.
The idea in full
- What
- Ampyard is a US marketplace for transformers, switchgear, generators and other electrical infrastructure, aimed at small electrical contractors, EV-charging installers and small datacenter operators who cannot get manufacturer allocation. Unlike a listings site, Ampyard buys, refurbishes and stocks long-lead equipment in regional yards, then opens its catalog, testing and delivery capabilities as a platform that financiers, refurbishers and independent brokers transact through. Founders sell directly to anchor suppliers and the first hundred contractor buyers.
- Why now
- Three current YC companies attack hardware procurement with software alone - Stoa (S26, 'the market behind AI hardware'), Reframe (W26, AI-native hardware procurement marketplace) and Waybill (S26, managed procurement for hardware teams) - which signals the demand while leaving the capital-heavy move, actually holding power equipment inventory, untaken.
- Wedge: first customer and entry point
- Buy and recertify used distribution transformers in one region, sell to electrical contractors locked out of 100-week OEM lead times, and use those trades to sign the first refurbisher and equipment-finance partners onto the platform.
- Path to 100x
- US electrical infrastructure equipment is a $100B+ annual market in structural shortage, and the marketplace that physically holds stock becomes the clearing venue everyone else - brokers, lenders, refurbishers - must build on. Yard density plus exclusive allocations compound into a distribution moat: buyers come for availability, suppliers come for the buyers, and the platform take extends to financing and logistics.
- Ceiling
- Manufacturers eventually clear the backlog and go direct with their own allocation programs, compressing the marketplace to a spot-market niche.
- Closest real companies, as the generator saw them
- Stoa, Reframe and Waybill broker or manage hardware procurement without owning inventory, mostly in electronics; Buildhop lists construction materials online. Ampyard takes balance-sheet positions in long-lead electrical gear and lets third parties build on its stocked catalog.
- Main risk
- A demand pause in datacenter and grid buildout strands millions of dollars of slow-moving, specialized inventory.
Five judges
Each judge scores every idea in the catalog with a named rubric; the venture judge decides whether a card is shown at all (4-5 is venture-grade).
Venture investor
3/5
A $100B+ shortage market, but holding transformers on the balance sheet means capital-linear growth and stranded inventory if the datacenter buildout pauses.
Bootstrapper
2/5
Buying and refurbishing distribution transformers onto your own balance sheet is millions of slow inventory, not a two-person cash cycle.
Operator
5/5
Contractors locked out of 100-week transformer lead times will pay anything for stock today, and holding inventory is exactly what they already buy.
Technologist
1/5
Buying and refurbishing distribution transformers into regional yards is a balance-sheet business with no compounding technical asset whatsoever.
Risk
4/5
Owned yards of transformers, unregulated US sales to many small contractors, and no platform or license gate between Ampyard and its buyers.
trends
3/5
Datacenter power shortage and 100-week transformer lead times are real acceleration, but the shortage dates to 2023 and the cited YC trio only proves software demand.
Similar startups in the directory
Companies whose pitch matches most of the idea's terms (stocked, marketplace, power, equipment, behind, datacenter, buildout, transformers): 22 all-time, 8 from the last two years. Same matching as Idea Check.
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The generator's reference companies
Real companies the model named as closest when it wrote the card, with their fate. A check mark is a company the radar could verify in its directory.
Public money in this direction
US federal grants, SBIR/STTR awards and open opportunities from the radar's public-money feed, matched to the idea's terms; the sector totals give the context.
8
grants and programs matching the idea
21
startup-relevant grants in Commerce and marketplaces
$20M
awarded in the sector, tracked
1
opportunities open now in the sector
NIH / NCI · SBIR phase II · $1M · posted 2026-09-22
- I-Corps: Translation Potential of a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)-Integrated, Digital Twin for Real-Time Resilience Assessment of Power Infrastructureawardhigh relevance
National Science Foundation · I-Corps · $50K · posted 2026-08-17
- SBIR Phase I: Intelligent Wireless Charging and Device Management System for High-Volume Environmentsawardhigh relevance
National Science Foundation · SBIR Phase I · $305K · posted 2026-08-11
- Collaborative Research: CPS: Medium: Designing a Closed-loop Unvoiced Interaction Paradigmawardhigh relevance
National Science Foundation · CPS-Cyber-Physical Systems · $497K · posted 2026-08-07
NIH / NIBIB · STTR phase I · $327K · posted 2025-09-01
NIH / NIBIB · STTR phase I · $295K · posted 2025-08-15
- High throughput electrosynthesis for enhanced drug discovery via light-powered smart microelectronicsawardhigh relevance
NIH / NIGMS · SBIR phase II · $291K · posted 2025-08-01
- Collaborative Research: VINES: Track 2: Heterogeneous Edge Intelligence for Natural Disaster Response Analytics (HEIDRA)awardmedium relevance
National Science Foundation · TIP-CHIPS KTA-6 Communications · $3M · posted 2026-08-24
Market signal
What the radar sees in Commerce and marketplaces: new companies by cohort year, the forming YC batch, and outcomes since the February snapshot.
Commerce and marketplaces · 145 → 119 → 130 → 67 → 34 new companies 2022 → 2026 · 87% aliveYC F26 live: 0 in this cluster, 0% of the batch (was 2% in S26)Since February, of 419 YC companies here: 4 acquired, 7 shut down, 28 rewrote their pitch
Design attributes
The card is one cell of a designed set: every axis below was chosen before the text was written, and the text had to realize it.
- Buyer
- Small business
- Business model
- Marketplace
- Path to 100x
- Platform others build on
- Market size
- $100B+ market
- Capital intensity
- Capital-heavy (hardware, bio, infra)
- Speed to revenue
- Revenue in 1-3 years
- Technical depth
- Real engineering
- Go-to-market
- Founder-led sales
- Moat
- Distribution moat
- Geography
- US first
- Regulation
- Unregulated
- Vibe
- Hot space
Listed under
An idea sits in its own sector and in any sector its text clearly touches.
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